Brace for Occupation: US Plans to ‘Seize and Govern’ Syria’s Raqqa — Joint Chiefs of Staff

American and Turkish military leaders have agreed to develop a long-term plan for “seizing, holding and governing” the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, the US Department of Defense’s news service reported Sunday.

“The coalition and Turkey will work together on the long-term plan for seizing, holding and governing Raqqa,” Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said after meeting his Turkish counterpart Army Gen. Hulusi Akar in the Turkish capital Ankara on Sunday, according to DoD News.

The guile and lack of self-consciousness on display here is off the charts. Americans are openly talking about occupying a portion of a sovereign country (that they’re not even officially at war with) and setting it up for partition — and their media isn’t even scandalized enough to censor it.

Only Americans can talk about how they intend to march on a city in a foreign country, take it, and run it — and not realize just how scandalous that sounds to everyone else.

What Americans are talking about here is occupation plain and simple. The US is a foreign power, it has no business “seizing” and “governing” a city in Syria. It also has no business cutting in neighboring Turkey in on the action.

Imagine Syrians explaining they intend to stroll into the US and take an American city to be governed by them and Mexico?

Doubtlessly the US intends to install some local client to run Raqqa rather than an American general, but that is same difference.

The revelation that US has “long-term” plans for Raqqa should worry Syria deeply. This is a confirmation that if the US gets Raqqa first it will not allow the Syrian government to ever retake it.

On the ground the US might be engaged in combat against ISIS alone but its fight now is to partition Syria between Damascus and a rebel emirate centered on Raqqa.